Chris Riddell is familiar to both children and adults for his distinctive line drawings with their clever caricature, fascinating detail and often enchanting fantasy elements.

A wonderful interview by Susanna Rustin in The Guardian dated 19/12/2014 is well worth a read!

He studied illustration at Brighton Polytechnic and has illustrated many picture books including Something Else by Kathryn Cave which was shortlisted for the Smarties Prize and which won the Unesco Award. The Swan's Stories by Brian Alderson was shortlisted for the 1997 Kurt Maschler Award and Castle Diary was shortlisted in 1999 for the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal. He then went on to win the Kate Greenaway Medal twice, in 2002 for Pirate Diary and in 2004 for Jonathan Swift's Gulliver.

Chris' popularity extends to the young teenage market with his collaboration with Paul Stewart on the best selling Edge Chronicles series and with Neil Gaiman on The Graveyard Book, The Sleeper and the Spindle, and Fortunately the Milk. For slightly younger children his Fergus Crane adventure series, again written by Paul Stewart, has achieved critical success with Fergus Crane winning the Smarties Gold Award and Corby Flood winning the Smarties Silver Award. More recently he has collaborated with Russell Brand on Trickster Tales: The Pied Piper of Hamelin. His solo work includes the Goth Girl series, the Ottoline series and the picture books The Emperor of Absurdia and Alienography. The first Goth Girl novel won the Costa Children's Book Award in 2013. He received the Hay Festival Medal for Illustration at the 2015 Hay Festival.

In addition to his children's book work, Chris is a renowned political cartoonist whose work appears regularly in The Observer, The Literary Review and The New Statesman. One of his claims to fame is that he was the first cartoonist to depict William Hague in shorts; an illustration that William Hague subsequently bought.

All in all an extraordinary achievement which cements Chris Riddell's position as one of the top illustrators working today.

Books

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Illustrations

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